Portland's First Living Room

By Julia Benford

Did you know that Portland has over 12,000 acres of parkland within its city limits? One of the best things about Portland is the way that green space is integrated with the rest of the city, making it possible to enjoy a day in the park while still having access to shops, restaurants, and cultural opportunities. South Park Blocks, located downtown, is a great place to visit if you want to experience Portland’s unique combination of parks and culture. We sat down with David Newman, founder of Friends of South Park Blocks, to find out what makes the park so special.

What role does South Park Blocks play in the surrounding community?

There are 3-4,000 people living within 2 blocks of the park. Since downtown Portland is an urban area without room for yards, South Park Blocks provides important green space for those residents. It has something for everyone-- in addition to nearby residents, you also see downtown workers taking their lunch breaks, preschool groups having recess, and visitors checking out downtown. So really it’s a space for anyone who comes to downtown Portland.

What connection does South Park Blocks have with nearby businesses?

Being downtown, South Park Blocks is located near many businesses and organizations. The Portland Art Museum, the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, and the Oregon Historical Society Museum are all located adjacent to the park, and there are lots of restaurants and shops nearby. Having the park nearby gives a distinctive feel to the area. It’s unique to have a park so close to these kinds of downtown visitor attractions.

Without South Park Blocks, how would the neighborhood be different?

Without the South Park Blocks, there would be no green space or gardens in the neighborhood. Having the park there makes the area more open and spacious, creating a venue for local events. As I mentioned previously, there is a nice concentration of cultural centers in the neighborhood, and the park provides a central space that ties these organizations together.

Next time you’re downtown, try spending some time exploring South Park Blocks and its neighboring attractions. There’s no better way to spend an afternoon than a relaxing stroll in the park, followed by some beautiful paintings at the Portland Art Museum and an evening performance at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. If you’re looking for a quicker trip, check out the South Park Blocks Wednesday Farmer’s Market, where you can pick up some tasty pizza for lunch and fresh produce for dinner. South Park Blocks is a convenient way to enjoy both Portland’s vibrant city life and its beautiful parks.

Building The Portland Landscape

You can keep up with and give your input into Portland's Park Projects here.

More goes into building a park than most of us can imagine.  While creating a small garden this spring, I began to understand the time, effort and resources that go into making a small spot of beauty and utility within the city. Now multiply that area by over 11,000 acres and you have a clue to the intensity of the design process that goes into Portland’s parks.

The materials, landscape and park features all create something that community members want to recreate in and enjoy.  Like most wildlife, humans need places of shelter and beautiful lush greenery to feel relaxed in parks.  Water features create comfort and cooling areas during hot summer days.  In this TED Talk, Amanda Burden talks about how she reinvigorated New York through parks.

View: How Public Spaces Make Cities Work

Photo courtesy Friends of the Highline

Steps for a 15-Minute Nature Break

Photos courtesy OSU Master Naturalist Program

Portland is home to thousands of acres of natural areas with interesting flora, fauna and geology to discover around every corner.  In an effort to get Portlanders out to enjoy their natural areas, we teamed up with an OSU Master Naturalist Program student, Kenneth Cobleigh, to write a series of seasonal blogs about parks through a naturalist's eyes. See the steps below for your 15-minute nature break today!

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Ken Cobleigh is a systems engineer and author with a strong passion for the natural world and how humans fit into it.  His favorite park to spend time is Hoyt Arboretum and he is currently enrolled in the OSU Master Naturalist Program to expand the breadth and width of his nature knowledge.

Have you ever been 'lost' in the woods?  I have, and it wasn’t because I didn’t know where I was on a map; rather I was lost in the wonderful world of nature that surrounded me.  As I have gotten older, I have had to moderate my pace due to painful arthritis that restricts my movement.  But in addition to the changes in my physical body I have come to realize that I have been missing out on the real beauty and the subtlety of the natural world by rushing through it to reach a destination.  Now I walk slowly and deliberately and with a passion to discover new things.  

I am studying to become an Oregon Master Naturalist, a program offered through OSU extension service, and in doing so have been instructed to increase my observational skills.  This includes using more than my eyes to see, and this process is very enlightening to me.  
To contemplate even a small part of the extreme complexity of the natural world is a daunting task. For example, I am in awe of the numerous interrelationships between species in a given ecosystem that may take decades or even centuries to fully comprehend.  And what drives this life-long adventure? Primarily careful, recorded observations!  A journal for notes, sketches, ideas, questions, etc. is a great tool and is indispensable for the naturalist.

Here is a simple exercise that anyone can do in a short time – say 15-20 minutes.  First, pick a place, maybe one of your favorite parks or natural areas or even your own backyard.  Then find a peaceful spot to settle into.  Your chosen spot should be off the beaten track a little so you are not interrupted.  Sit on the ground or on a log.  Relax and close your eyes.  What immediately happens?  You feel deprived of a very primary sense – your sight!  But don’t fret; in a few minutes you will acclimatize.  

As you do this exercise, do more than just sit and enjoy the peace.  Ask yourself questions such as:

• What is the current microclimate like?  Is it cold, warm, moist, dry? Am I in a field, the woods, on a mountainside? Am I near water? How does the local geography shape this microclimate?

• How does the ground feel – rocky, soft, sandy?  How does the local geology impact what I feel?

• What sounds am I hearing?  Which are natural and which are man-made? If in the woods, listen for branches rubbing or the wind whispering through the needles and leaves.  Pay attention to the birdsongs and what direction are they coming from.

• What direction is the wind coming from; how strong is it; how does it fluctuate?

• What am I smelling?  Is it floral, pungent, or foul smelling?

• What can I feel?  How does the bark of the log I am sitting on feel?  Is it deeply furrowed, slightly furrowed, or smooth?

Upon opening your eyes, see how many of your observations make sense from a visual perspective. Begin your walk again.  Move slowly and quietly. Use your eyes to scan the ground for animal tracks. Pay attention to the texture and the color of the foliage and the diversity and activity of the fauna of your chosen spot. Now integrate all of your senses together.  What is the story this place is trying to tell you?  You are on your way to a much deeper understanding and appreciation for the nature that surrounds you.

I encourage you to do this numerous times until all of your senses are working together in harmony to perceive the natural world around you in detail.  I guarantee this to be a very satisfying journey!

Parks Instead of Pills

Photo courtesy Portland Parks & Recreation

Parks just make people healthier.  Exercising outside instead of in a gym increases levels of vitamin D, decreases stress and a general feeling of mental ease and revitalization.  In a study of over 21,000 urbanites across many European countries, researchers found that access to green space and recreational areas greatly reduced socioeconomic health inequalities in neighboring communities, while financial services, transport, and cultural facilities had no similar effect. This fun Trust for Public Land video below outlines the top 8 ways that parks benefit our health.

View: 8 Ways Parks Improve Your Health

Video and Image courtesy Trust for Public Land

Of the many reasons people site for not exercising, time and money are a few of the most quoted. Parks create places for people to recreate and exercise for free and close to home. Instead of stretching on a section of sidewalk or dancing Zumba in your neighbor’s front yard, parks provide us with a comfortable place to exercise together that is safe from traffic or other disturbances. We encourage you this summer to get out and join one of the FREE exercise classes in our parks or simply grab a friend and meet in your favorite park for some much needed exercise this summer.  It will make your mind and body much happier.

Parks - Where Memories are Made

PPF Board Chair Gina Eiben volunteering with one of her children at the 2015 Parke Diem. Photo taken by Stephen Brown in Washington Park

The phrase ‘sense of place’ has become a buzzword for those that work with land conservation for at least a decade.  It is often envisioned as a physical aspect of the landscape itself – a beautiful tree, rich agricultural soil, a field where a historic event took place. As places in Portland come and go with development and time, people’s sense of the places that mark important feelings, memories or values inevitably alter as well.

Often all that is left of a place are the citizens that keep the memories, big and small, that define our city. Thankfully, Portland’s nearly 12,000 acres of parkland have been reserved for generations of these memories to collect and enrich our lives. For our 15th anniversary year we’ll be talking to folks whose big and small memories of Portland’s park spaces shape their lives and the way they view the city itself.

We asked what parks mean to our Board Chair Gina Eiben. A transplant like many Portlanders these days, parks have helped her establish deep roots within our city.

How did you come to Portland?

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I began my legal career in Cleveland, Ohio where I practiced law for two years before relocating to Portland.  I was drawn to Portland long before I moved here - amazed by the abundance of natural beauty and the prevalent use and enjoyment of the outdoors.  When I first visited Portland in November 1998, my sister took me on a walk through Washington Park.  It was a torrential downpour and we were soaked, but that didn’t stop us or the crowd of turkey trotters from enjoying the lush scenery. I, like so many others, fell in love with Portland.  Since moving to Portland in 2007, parks have proven to be a great source of entertainment, relaxation and refuge through the various phases of my life.  

“. . .parks have proven to be a great source of entertainment, relaxation and refuge through the various phases of my life.”

— Gina Eiben

How have Portland’s parks played a role in your life?

When I finally relocated here in 2007, and didn’t know anyone, I did a lot of hiking by myself in Forest Park.  When my now husband moved here, and we got a dog, the three of us spent numerous weekends hiking and relaxing in Portland parks.  Now that I have two sons, ages 2 and 5, we regularly walk to the many wonderful parks near our neighborhood in NE Portland.

Some of my best memories include my inaugural walk through Washington Park with my sister in 1998.  In 2010, my husband and I were married in the Shakespeare Garden in Washington Park.  I was delighted and proud to welcome my friends and family, most of whom had never been to Portland, to experience the city, but especially the park.  On a sunny afternoon in 2011, I strolled through the Rose Garden in Washington Park experiencing the wonder of labor, and waiting to welcome our first son.

Do you feel parks are important to Portland’s identity?

I believe that Portlanders are especially lucky to have the natural resources that we do. The city is blessed with natural beauty that can’t be recreated or substituted.  Portland’s parks are a real treasure.  Parks have something to offer to every person in this city – nature is a great equalizer.  I love our parks.  I want to maintain what we have and continue to grow the prevalence and accessibility of parks throughout the city.  I don’t want to see our parks be taken for granted.  In our fifteenth year, the Foundation has an energy, sense of stewardship and commitment to equity that is inspiring.  I feel proud to be part of such a capable and focused organization whose work is essential to protecting and promoting park space and programs throughout the City .

Parks are more than just empty places in the city.  They deserve to be preserved with the same care as the memories created within their boundaries.  We hope you will join us to make them even better for generations to come.

Parks Provide More than Shade

Parks are truly Portland’s living room during the summer months. Other than a nice shady picnic spot, what do parks really provide Portlanders? Here’s a roundup of our top blogs this year on the value parks bring to our city. That leads us to ask – how do parks and park programs help you?

As we began to celebrate our 15th anniversary year at an open house last week, many folks talked about why parks and private support for parks are important.  Now it’s your turn - share your story and you can win a pair of our 15th Anniversary shades just in time for the summer sun!

We’ll see you at that perfect picnic spot this month rocking your new sunglasses!

1.    Health
2.    Recreation
3.    Economic Development
4.    Environmental Health
5.    Wildlife Habitat
6.    Community
7.    Education

Thanks for helping support Portland’s parks and park programs that give so much back year-round. Now get out there and enjoy the park system you are helping build!

Our 11,000+ Acre Gym

PPF Board Member Charlie Baker playing baseball at Scavone Field in Westmoreland Park. Charlie is a supporter of recreation both at work at Nike and at play where he participates in a championship-winning local baseball team.

May is National Fitness Month and it only takes a moment in Portland’s parks to see their importance in our exercise routines.  On one sunny evening this spring a stroll into to my neighborhood park looked like an introduction scene from a fitness video.  People were walking dogs, playing basketball, jogging, stretching, and children were biking and playing on the playground structure.

When it comes to providing safe places for youth to exercise, parks are an especially important resource in our city.  Many studies have found that if children have easy access to safe parks and playgrounds, they are more likely to engage in physical activity and less likely to be overweight.

The Office of Disease Control and Health Promotion states that youth should get 1 hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity per day.  Unfortunately, today many children aren’t getting the exercise they need and about 12.7 million children in America are overweight or obese.

One of PPF’s board members, Charlie Baker, can testify to the powerful role parks have made in his pursuit of life-long fitness and recreation. “I’ve been an athlete my entire life.  The very first place I learned to play tee-ball was in a park.  In fact, I still play baseball 40+ years later at places like Lents Park, Gabriel Park, and Pier Park.”

Unfortunately, some areas of east and northeast Portland still lack a fully developed park within reasonable walking distance, and many streets still do not have sidewalks for children to get to park locations. As a 2014 Portland Parks & Recreation press release stated, “Two out of every five households in this part of town do not have easy access to a City of Portland park, in stark contrast to the rest of Portland where four out of every five households live within a half-mile of a park or natural area. . . Demand for recreational services is high, and closing this “play gap” is a priority for Portland Parks & Recreation and Commissioner Fritz.”

The path forward seems simple. As Charlie puts it, “If you have a body, you are an athlete. . . athletes need safe and well maintained places to play.” The current effort to help build Cully Park by our nonprofit partner Verde is a good example of what we can do to help children access the recreational opportunities they need to stay healthy.  The Portland Parks Foundation is committed to help fundraise to build Cully Park and we look forward to partnering further with park supporters until every Portland child can access the outdoor recreation they need.

Souvlaki Coyote and Other Tales of Urban Wildlife

It is hard to miss the life bursting forth in Portland's parks in the spring.  Flowers are blooming, people are out getting vitamin D, and wildlife are enjoying the bounty spring brings. Parks are important habitat for wildlife in our urban core, and whether they pose a joy or a challenge, wildlife are permanent citizens here in Portland. The blog below is reprinted with permission from The Nature of Cities blog and is written by Bob Sallinger.

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About the Writer:
Bob Sallinger

Bob Sallinger has worked for Audubon Society of Portland since 1992 and currently serves as the Society’s conservation director. He lives in Northeast Portland with his wife Elisabeth Neely, two children, a dog, cat, goats and chickens.

Much of the fabulous writing on The Nature of Cities blog site to date has focused on integrating the built and natural environment, erasing, or at least softening the lines that separate the natural and the manmade. I would like to shift focus a bit and explore the intersection between people and wildlife and suggest that we would also be wise to consider how we integrate animals into our urban stories, poems, art, culture and collective narrative. We need to bring the same level of creativity and imagination that we are currently investing in transforming our physical landscape into repopulating our mental landscape with the diversity of life that surrounds us.

In short, we need to do a better job telling animal stories — urban animal stories.

I am not talking here necessarily of ecology, biology and natural history, although ecological literacy is of critical importance. I am taking at least one step further back into the realm of mythology, legend and folklore, about how we tell and retell our own story in a way that truly recognizes wild beings as fellow travelers on our urban landscapes.

For many years I ran Portland Audubon Society’s wildlife hospital. There we treated upwards of 3,000 injured wild animals and responded to more than 15,000 wildlife related phone calls each year. The vast majority of both calls and animals emanated from the urban and suburban landscape. One of the indelible impressions from those years was how often somebody would walk into our center having taken significant time out of their busy day to deliver an injured animal, and ask us some variation on “what is it and why is it here?” They would insist that until that very morning, when the animal was dragged in by the cat or slammed into their kitchen window or collided with their car, they had never seen this creature in their neighborhood before. We would slowly open the box only to find ourselves eye to eye with…a crow…or a robin…or a scrub jay…or a fox squirrel. Often however, when the same people returned a few weeks later to pick-up the repaired animals for release, they would tell us that their neighborhood was suddenly teaming with never before seen wildlife. A connection was made…eyes were opened.

Fish art on downtown Portland, Oregon (USA) building, Photo by Bob Sallinger.

The human mind is good at filtering information and more than 35,000 years after humans first painted wild animals on cave walls, we have done a remarkable job of exorcizing wildlife from our consciousness. We don’t expect to see wildlife in our cities and therefore we don’t…until something or someone alters our expectations.

Those animals we treated at our hospital were sad and broken, but at the same time they also painted a rich tapestry of stories about how wild animals live and die in our urban landscape and how they interact with one another and with us. These stories are not the stuff of field guides, PhDs or wildlife management plans. They are funny and sad and weird and mysterious…sometimes they are mystical.

They are messy too.

Raccoon as urban trickster. Photo by Michael Durham.

If we restore it, critters will come, but we are not always sure what to do with them when they get here. Coyotes run off with cats, raccoons roll garbage cans, birds slam into windows, deer browse grandma’s flower beds, otters crack shellfish on the decks of high priced yachts…they are our own modern day tricksters.

Throw a high concentration of humans into the mix and the opportunities for mayhem increase exponentially. Among my favorite vignettes: the woman who wanted me to suggest a natural area to release her pet alligator. It was cute, apparently, when she bought it, but now it is three feet long, won’t stay in the bathtub and seems inclined to eat the kids and Chihuahua.

Apparently they don’t read the signs. Photo by Bob Sallinger.

The gentleman who graciously shared his hot tub with the neighborhood raccoons because “all the wetlands have been filled” and could not understand why the ungrateful little beasties decided to dismantle it one day while he was at work.

The lady from the Greek restaurant who delivered leftover souvlaki to a street corner in an upscale Portland neighborhood each morning to feed the local coyotes who promptly began associating all people with restaurant handouts.

Nursing moms who suckle orphaned raccoons (yes, really… and it happens more often than you might think!). Working on urban wildlife management issues is sometimes a bit like living inside of an extended “Far Side” cartoon.

A friend who works as an urban natural resource planner once told me that 90% of her job was trying to get people comfortable with “messiness.” She is right. A big part of the challenge before us is integrating messiness into a culture that increasingly prioritizes higher and higher levels of organization.

Souvlaki Coyote on the prowl in downtown Portland, Oregon (USA)

Over time I came to realize that wildlife rehabilitation was about fixing broken animals, but it also was just as much about being a chronicler of the animals in our midst. I slowly realized that the succession of stories that I heard day in and day out were indelibly transforming my own mental map of the city. As I move about Portland now I can’t help but transpose those stories onto the landscape. That corner is where coyote loped across the highway and disappeared behind a bar….this fire escape is home to a pair of red-tails that sometimes bop high-rise construction workers that intrude upon their airspace…that bridge is where a pair of Peregrines have nested since 1994 and fledged 58 young…and so on.

Peregrine nesting on Portland Bridge. Photo by Bob Sallinger.

I can already hear the lamentations of my friends on the scientific community: “you are talking about anthropomorphizing wildlife—that’s the last thing we need.”

Actually I am not.

I am after something different here.

How do we create stories that fundamentally reconnect our communities with the life forms that surround us? The types of stories that imbue our urban landscape with the magic, mystery, ambiguity, messiness…inspiration that comes with a recognition that we are not alone…we weren’t even here first.

Fledgling Peregrine exploring Portland’s industrial landscape on foot. Photo by William Hall.

Our lack of awareness plays out subtly as we consider policies to re-green our landscape. Too often our decision-makers and the community at large view wildlife as something we should consider adding as opposed to recognizing wild animals as something that has always been and will always be part of our urban landscape. In a city like Portland, which sits at the confluence of two great rivers, wild animals will continue to live upon and migrate through our landscape. The only question is whether we will provide for their needs when they are here.

There are signs of progress. I am intrigued by the proliferation of urban wildlife webcams. Several years back, Portland Audubon collaborated with a local television station and placed one above a pair or Red-tails that nest on a downtown fire escape and “Raptor Cam” was born. As something of a Luddite, I was initially skeptical and frankly appalled by the substitution of digital experience for direct experience.

Raptor Cam Red-tail on nest. Photo by Dieter Waiblinger.

Half a decade later, I see it differently. Each year the site gets nearly a million hits as people track these birds like a soap opera. They anticipate and celebrate and grieve and discuss and opine on line with one another. I hope and wonder if perhaps it causes them to look skyward more often when they actually are outdoors.

My friend Mike Houck of the Urban Greenspaces Institute (and who also writes on this blog) was after the same type of awareness when he commissioned a giant mural of our urban birds on an bare mausoleum wall overlooking Portland’s first natural area at Oaks Bottom and when he convinced a local brewery to name a microbrew after Portland’s official city bird, the Great Blue Heron.

Oaks Bottom Mural, Portland, Oregon, commissioned by Mike Houck. Photo by Nelson Photography.

I see it as well in books like Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis which transforms Portland’s Forest Park into an impassible wilderness occupied by baby snatching crows and scheming coyotes. Even the television show Portlandia, with its ubiquitously referenced (at least in Portland) “Put a bird on it” sketch edges towards what I am after.

Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis.

Restoring ecologically healthy cities will require the participation of a far broader cross-section of the urban population than is currently engaged, whether that is naturescaping backyards, reducing nighttime lighting to prevent migratory bird strikes, housing cats indoors, or funding green infrastructure. At Audubon we often talk about the conservation continuum of appreciation, understanding and action, but I think sometimes we skip a step, perhaps the most vital step, of simple awareness. I think we underestimate the degree to which the concept of “urban wildlife” remains an anomaly for much of the populace. People can’t care if they are not aware…

Wildlife of Portland Poster produced by Portland Bureau of Environmental Services to raise awareness of urban biodiversity.

This site has attracted an amazing array of experts already but I hope as it continues to expand it can perhaps pull in some poets and storytellers. To that end I will leave those who have read this far with one of may favorite urban wildlife stories. It involves a crow named “Havoc” that I came to know several years ago. It has been more than a decade since I last saw him, but he has forever altered the way I look at crows.

One of Portland’s more unique residents was a crow appropriately dubbed “Havoc.” Havoc was discovered in downtown Portland where he spent his days drinking out of the Benson bubblers, dodging traffic and barking at blond women. Our best guess is that he had been illegally raised as a pet and then set free.

Eventually his antics resulted in his capture and delivery to Audubon’s Wildlife Care Center. Upon arrival, he immediately released himself from the confines of the pet carrier in which he found himself imprisoned, flew to nearest sink, turned on the faucet and had himself a nice, long, cool drink. Once satiated, he turned to the assembled staff and volunteers, gave three high pitched barks, “whoop, whoop, whoop,” and bowed.

Havoc lived at Audubon’s Care Center for a year during which he served as an education bird teaching kids about the importance of keeping wild animals wild. With a penchant for blondes, bathes, mice and mealworms, he quickly became a favorite of the general public. Generally he had the run of the place during the day but was caged at night—something he openly and vocally despised. He would greet us each morning by springing up and down in his cage like some manic, feathered pogo stick. Failure to satiate his ever-changing desires quickly resulted in what only can be described as a vindictive temper-tantrum, a full-fledged squawking, shrieking, food flying, ankle pecking, crow freak-out. His tastes were expensive too—one day I turned to find him removing the prism from a five hundred dollar ophthalmoscope.  

Several months after arriving Havoc decided to test out what it was like to be free again—my suspicion is that he was thinking about it for quite some time because he waited until several doors were simultaneously open and then launched himself through a succession doorways and out into our sanctuary. A short while later we began receiving reports of an oddly vocal crow down by the creek that runs through our property.

The creek was running high and muddy from winter rains and perched in the middle on a barely exposed rock was Havoc. Upon seeing us, he immediately leapt off the rock and made like some sort of mutant dipper, dunking himself completely below the surface and then reappearing to preen and make sure that we were still there watching. Each time we moved toward him, he inched away. It was about the time that we were about to leave him to his freedom that a particularly large swell in the creek caught him off-guard. The sight of the distraught crow tumbling beak over claw down the creek surfacing occasionally to gurgle out a forlorn shriek was matched in absurdity only by the foolish human who dove in after him and emerged on the opposite bank muddy, drenched, ungrateful biting crow firmly in hand.

He was sent for a short time to live at Oregon State University where he participated in a study of captive crows. The professor in charge arranged for a cohort of blond coeds to visit Havoc on a daily basis to keep him reasonably entertained. I have always wondered about how many times the professor in charge got turned down before he found students willing to participate. “So, I have this crow that likes blonds and I was hoping you might be able to swing by my lab about 3 pm…” Havoc eventually returned to Audubon, irascible as ever.

Eventually Havoc was set free on a property at the edge of the urban growth boundary where the neighbors were apprised and accepting of a somewhat odd bird. He spent many months in the vicinity perfecting the art of pushing azalea pots off porches and showing up uninvited at local barbecues.

One day Havoc was sighted keeping company with other crows. However, when the flock left to roost Havoc was left behind, apparently absorbed in watching a man fly his model airplane in the field below. As time wore on his interactions with the flock increased. The last known Havoc sighting was at a local school. A man working in the school basement turned to find Havoc barking at him from the window well. That was just around sunset. The next morning the flock had moved on and Havoc was nowhere to be found.

Bob Sallinger
Portland, Oregon
USA

Parks are the Natural Classroom

Header photo courtesy Portland Parks & Recreation

Wendy Thompson, MFA, is a freelance writer and education specialist.  As an integrated arts educator, she taught at the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics in Washington State and worked with Saturday Academy and The Right Brain Initiative. She specializes in STEM to STEAM curriculum design, creating fully integrated units like Fern Frenzy, River Voices, and Story of the Snag. Her award winning poetry has been published in a variety of local and regional anthologies and she has also published articles in Teaching Tolerance, Science & Children, and Chrysalis: Journal of Transformative Language Arts.

Environmental education in the outdoors is a stepping stone to a healthy and well-educated society. It allows people of all ages to explore their curiosity and consider their place in the world. Our connectedness and diversity rise into great relief surrounded by layers of ancient soil and biota. Children’s self-esteem improves when they direct their own learning and challenge themselves both cognitively and physically. A student in a North American Association for Environmental Education video said it best, “In the classroom you’re just sitting at your desk learning about it; out here you actually get to go out and do it.”
 
With the many benefits of outside environmental education, it is no wonder that Portland enjoys many outlets for environmental education from pre-k through adulthood.  Portland Parks & Recreation alone offers at least 17 different programs to Portlanders ages 3-22, helping over 16,000 children each year learn in our public parks. I interviewed a local educator and artist, Wendy Thompson of Wahkeena Arts and of Springwater Studio, about her experiences in environmental education in Portland. Wendy has taught using hands-on and placed-based experiential learning techniques in the Metro region for over 25 years.
 
Do you think urban parks are an important resource for educators?
 
Whether as expansive as Forest Park or as minuscule as Mill Ends Park, urban parks are a vital resource for educators. Many classroom teachers, particularly on the elementary end, are generalists who are required to teach in a variety of subjects with minimal time for planning. The parks and related services not only provide opportunities for hands-on, experiential learning, but an abundance of professional development resources, training, and even lesson plans for a myriad of subject area connections.

What do you think children get in a natural setting that they can't get in a classroom?  
 
Why limit a child's experience of a Douglas fir to a text book photograph and facts when she can go to a local park and discover how many of her friends it takes to hug the trunk. She can find the mouse tail in the pine cone and write a legend, compare and contrast the needles to neighboring pine in her science journal, or peer under the bark with her magnifying lens and discover an entire micro community. She can make suppositions about growth patterns and life cycles, adaptations, and interdependence all while breathing in the health benefits of time outdoors. Research demonstrates the value of experiential, contextual, inquiry-based, integrated learning. In a natural park setting, children get the added benefit of full-on 3-D, sensory stimulation so lacking in our electronic 2-D classrooms.

What is one of your favorite memories of combining education and public parks or nature areas?
 
Through Saturday Academy, I was able to take a group of César Chávez elementary students to their neighborhood Columbia Park to Geocache. Not only did they learn about GPS coordinates, longitude/latitude, following directions, and ethics of geocache, they also learned about respect for their park. How could they find the cache deep under an azalea bush without hurting one single limb or leaving one footprint hint for the next geocacher? Some of the hints for the caches introduced them to botanical names and the students were sprinting from tree to tree, crawling in the grass, grinning throughout their learning experience. These inner city kids, who may never have explored the park beyond the playground or pool, were excited to show their friends the secret mysteries of the park, both inanimate and living.

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Let’s give thanks for the wonderful public parks and the teachers that help us unlock the secrets that unfold daily in nature.  The Portland Parks Foundation understands that environmental education is best conducted in nature, and we’re committed to supporting our 200+ natural classrooms across Portland.

Parks Seed Portland Business

Many studies have documented the economic benefits of public parks and nature spaces in cities. Increases in property values, tourism, capital investments and jobs all benefit citizens that live near public parks and natural recreation areas. A 2015 study by the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), estimated that local and regional parks generated nearly $2 billion in economic activity in Oregon in 2013 alone.

Portland’s park system is nationally recognized for excellence and has created a buzz that helps Portland businesses recruit some of the best workers in the nation. As one of our board members, David Thompson, Vice President at the Portland Business Alliance said, “Anytime you talk about the region you mention our parks. Companies are looking to locate here because Portland has a high quality of life and parks are one of the most prominent pieces of our quality of life.  Parks add direct value to our community and make it a great place to grow your business.”

“. . . Portland has a high quality of life and parks are one of the most prominent pieces of our quality of life.”

— David Thompson

David grew up in Portland near Grant Park, and as he said, “Growing up here, parks were my back yard.  I learned how to ride a bike and swim in Grant Park.”  Now with a family of his own, David’s family spends a lot of time in April Hill and Gabriel Parks near his home. “When a friend approached me to join the Portland Parks Foundation board I jumped at the chance because parks are so valuable to me and my family.”

Portland’s parks are valuable assets for economic activity and bring the city valuable tourist dollars. The same NRPA study aforementioned noted that Waterfront Park generated over $1 million in economic activity in 2013. In 2009 the Portland Parks Foundation helped the Naito family build the Bill Legacy Naito Fountain in Waterfront Park.  The fountain continues attract people to the park to gather and play throughout the year. As David Thompson said, “I use parks a lot more than I pay for them. Donating to the Parks Foundation, you can invest in something very specific that the entire community benefits from.”

The Foundation is grateful to our business partners who make parks a priority for their philanthropic investment each year. Those contributions have a measurable impact on park quality and leverage further investment by others through PPF’s campaigns.

Header photo by M.O. Stevens